Michael Jordan stormed off the court seemingly before the ball had eased its way through the net and “game” was called. It was just summer pickup, and the players weren’t even divided into their North Carolina and Duke allegiances as sometimes happened. But it was the very first game of the evening on a muggy night in the 1980s. And there were witnesses, a lot of them, as kids attending a Duke basketball camp had trickled in to watch the games. Jordan shunned everyone on his losing team and walked to the opposite end of the court. There he sat by himself, stewing, waiting for the next run.

Johnny Dawkins, then a guard at Duke, observed Jordan in isolation and wondered why he looked so mad. He’d find out soon enough. David Henderson, another Blue Devil, was Jordan’s teammate that evening, and he remembers that Jordan didn’t pass the ball — not that anyone had reason to complain about it.